Tuesday, March 29, 2011

In the last post we introduced a new parameter for our REST API. With the last release another new API feature was introduced which allows for a better usage of BibSonomy in browser based applications. The API is now able to output JSON. Instead of XML, all API request can be switched with the URL parameter format to return JSON. The JSON output of the last post's example with alphabetical ordered tags of the user beate can be accessed by the following request (you need your username and API key to access the URL):

If you would like to force the API to provide the XML version you need to change the parameter format to format=xml.

Another option to switch between the two output formats is the Accept parameter send to the server in the header of the HTML request. The screenshot below shows the typical XML output (top part of the figure) and parts of the request header (bottom). Besides the typical text/html format, the request asks for application/xml as one output option. If this is changed to application/json the API will send the answer in JSON format.

If you would like to try it yourself you can use the Firefox addon Modify Headers.

We hope you will find the new feature useful. Every feedback is very welcome.

Friday, March 18, 2011

BibSonomy provides an API (Application Programming Interface) which other software programs can use to access the services and resources provided by BibSonomy. It is build on the REST (Representational State Transfer) architecture style and enables programs to post data (for example creating a new user), read data (for example getting the publications or tags of a user), updating or deleting data (for example one's own entries).

Recently, a new parameter for reading a user's tags was added. The parameter enables an alphabetical or frequency-based ordering of tags.

Monday, March 14, 2011

We are still improving the integration of the Digital Object Identifier System (DOI), which tackles the problem of referencing, among others, digitally published scientific publications. As already described in a previous post, you can store a reference to such a publication by selecting its DOI with your mouse somewhere on some web page and applying one of our bookmarklets "post bookmark" or "post publication":

You can, of course, also enter a DOI in the post publication dialog or by providing accordingly formatted BibTeX fields as described a an other blog post. Publication references in BibSonomy containing DOIs can be easily identified in every resource list, as the corresponding entries contain a direct link to the referenced resource:

With our last release, we additionally added the DOI link to the details page of each publication containing a digital object identifier, allowing to easily navigate to a resource of interest:

Stay tuned to learn more about new features and background information - Happy Tagging!

Thursday, March 3, 2011

One of the main advantages of organizing references in BibSonomy is the online availability of your collection. To facilitate your scientific workflow BibSonomy allows not only the storage of a publication's bibliographic data but also to attach a document - e. g., a private copy of the paper or your own personal notes - to your post.
Our last release included a general overhaul of this file upload feature.
It is now possible to store several documents with the same publication. Further, you can now upload your files either

directly during posting or while editing a post (click edit and then details to edit a post)

or on the posts details page (simply click on the title of one of your posts to get there).

To retrieve your documents go to the post's details page. Posts that have documents attached are marked with the document symbol on your myBibSonomy page. By clicking on the symbol you can download the first of your documents.
Note, that (mainly due to Copyright reasons) the uploaded documents are private. That is, they are available only to you and to the members of the groups that you have joined.